Polly Berrien Berends Quotes

#1. Whenever the child is given the notion that he needs to be entertained, learning comes almost to a halt.

Polly Berrien Berends

#2. A sense of worthiness is a child's most important need.

Polly Berrien Berends

#3. Especially with our first child, we tend to take too much responsibility
both credit and blame
for everything. The more we wantto be good parents, the more we tend to see ourselves as making or breaking our children.

Polly Berrien Berends

#4. The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.

Polly Berrien Berends

#5. The trouble with most problem-solving books for parents is that they start with the idea that the child has a problem. Then they try to tell us how to fix the child, or else, after blaming the parent, they suggest how we can fix ourselves.

Polly Berrien Berends

#6. The parent is the strongest statement that the child hears regarding what it means to be alive and real. More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.

Polly Berrien Berends

#7. Everything that happens is either a blessing, which is also a lesson, or a lesson which is also a blessing.

Polly Berrien Berends

#8. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.

Polly Berrien Berends

#9. My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.

Polly Berrien Berends

#10. A child needs both to be hugged and unhugged. The hug lets her know she is valuable. The unhug lets her know that she is viable. If you're always shoving your child away, they will cling to you for love. If you're always holding them closer, they will cling to you for fear.

Polly Berrien Berends

#11. We do not have to get our children to learn; only to allow and encourage them in their learning. We do not have to dictate what they should learn; only to discern and respond to what it is that they are learning. Such responsiveness is at once the most educational and the most loving.

Polly Berrien Berends

#12. We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.

Polly Berrien Berends

#13. Everything that happens to you is your teacher. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.
Polly B. Berends

Polly Berrien Berends

#14. Most of us would do more for our babies than we have ever been willing to do for anyone, even ourselves.

Polly Berrien Berends

#15. If your children see that you are seeking, they will seek-the finding part is up to God.

Polly Berrien Berends

#16. Parenthood always comes as a shock. Postpartum blues? Postpartum panic is more like it. We set out to have a baby; what we get is a total take-over of our lives.

Polly Berrien Berends

#17. We can see that the baby is as much an instrument of nourishment for us as we are for him.

Polly Berrien Berends

#18. The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins walking. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.

Polly Berrien Berends

#19. Suddenly we have a baby who poops and cries, and we are trying to calm, clean up, and pin things together all at once. Then as fast as we learn to cope
so soon
it is hard to recall why diapers ever seemed so important. The frontiers change, and now perhaps we have a teenager we can't reach.

Polly Berrien Berends